Fiction: Sidekick Carl, part 2!

 Didn't have any movie reviews or toys for today, but got up to another chapter for the Sidekick Carl Adventure. This time featuring Audrey, the giant lady and the Toxo Warriors (kind of).

The screen showed a stylized graphic of a man in the gear of a construction worker, with a thick, black beard and a young, unlined face. “He was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time,” a voice intoned. The view shifted to a silhouette with glowing red eyes. “He was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t know that he was building a headquarters for an agency that created a monster. Then the monster got loose.”

A blue-white flash filled the screen. “A blast of the Organic Energizer killed the entire human staff, and unleashed a horde of mutants at the heart of a city. But what didn’t kill him made him stronger.” The graphic showed the same man crying out as his muscles bulged and grew. Then there was a shot of him scrambling up the girders of an unfinished tower. “When all seemed lost, he came to the rescue and defeated the Master of the Mutants. From that day forward, his name was the Constructor, and now he defends us all!”

With that, the video paused. “There you have it, the pinnacle of anti-mutant propaganda,” the speaker said. She stood on the top of a low, wheeled stepladder positioned behind a podium, her tail swishing as she spoke. A plaque on the podium said AUDREY. “The introduction of the first episode of the Constructor cartoon show. So, is it harmless entertainment, history, or state-sanctioned propaganda?”

Her snout seemed to point as she surveyed the audience. About thirty of the fifty chairs in the conference room were filled. At the very rear were five near-humanoid creatures, including a hairy creature without visible eyes that was almost certainly asleep. On either side were a pair of silvery robots, both inscrutably featureless. The rest were evidently ordinary humans, aside from a woman in an orange jumpsuit on the end of the third row who was at least seven feet tall. When no comments came, she said, “Would anyone on the panel like to comment?” She looked to her left. Seated there were Carl plus another robot with a pair of horns and a man with a long beard dressed in what looked like a Renaissance outfit. Their plaques said DESTRUCTO and PALADIN.

Carl politely raised a hand. “One thing I can say,” he said, “Constructor hated that cartoon.” There were chuckles in the audience. “Seriously, we tried to work with the writers, and I suppose they did the best they could, at first. Their head writer finally said that the real adventures weren’t enough for the show. He really wasn’t wrong. I went with him on fewer than 30 missions in over 10 years, 12 of them against just Basiliskus, the  Raven and Hydro, and there were what, 200 episodes of the show?”

“187 episodes in the syndication package,” Destructo said. “Plus unaired pilot.”

“What about the portrayal of neomorphs on the show?” Audrey said pointedly.

“He had nothing to do with that,” Carl said. “I heard him tell them, he did know about the mutants, neomorphs I mean, and exactly how they were treated. If the revolt hadn’t happened, he would have resigned the day after.”

“Ay, he told me the same thing himself,” said Paladin. “I fought with him against the dragon man once, ‘twas more ghastly than the siege of Yoric.”

“So,” Audrey said, “are you saying Constructor supported neomorph rights?”

Carl shrugged. “We didn’t know what was even possible,” he said. “Almost all the mutants around were drones Basiliskus made himself. Nobody knew if they could survive without him.”

“But you knew about me,” Audrey said.

“We knew a few were different,” Carl said. “And you didn’t exactly run to our side.”

“Everything I knew about you was from watching Constructor kill and cripple my brothers!” Audrey snapped. She promptly composed herself. “But we don’t need to get into anything personal. How about the rest of you? Any questions or thoughts?”

A young man a few seats down from the very tall woman raised his hands. “What about all the new villains after season 2?” he said. “I mean, it was obvious most of them got pulled out of somebody’s butt crack. The deadly clowns? Gravitar? The Toxo Warriors??? Talk about bottom of the barrel…”

It was the woman who spoke up. “That was after the original writers retired or moved on,” she said. She uncrossed her legs, and it became clear she was even taller than she looked. “Besides, the Toxo Warriors were real.”

“Destructo was in season 3,” the robot said.

Carl tried to scratch the back of his neck through the jumpsuit. As usual, it didn’t work. “Uh, yeah, that’s right,” he said. “Actually, we spent two missions trying to catch them. We, uh, didn’t know anybody had given them a name...”

“They bring up an interesting case in point,” Audrey said. She made a few clicks on a small computer. An image appeared on the screen of a cartoon image two figures dressed in yellow and black, with incongruous pillbox hats and gas masks with glowing red eyes. “By the final season of the show, even villains who were human were dehumanized in the same fashion as neomorphs…”

“Yeah?” said the young man. “So there were two guys with gas masks and funny yellow hats just running around gassing people? And what were you and a construction worker supposed to do, hold your breath?”

“Constructor could hold his breath,” another young man said. “That’s how he got into Dr. Hydro’s undersea lab where he found Sidekick Carl.” He glanced at Carl. “Um, no offense.”

“None taken,” Carl said. “So yeah, So yeah, Constructor held his breath long enough to get to safety. That was the first time…”

“Were they human?” the second young man said. “I heard about them from someone who thought they were Basiliskus’s agents, or robots…”

“Some people thought so,” Audrey said. “I had my agents try to find out, just in case we got blamed.”

“No, they were human,” Carl said. “We got close enough to see their eyes, the lenses weren’t tinted. That was always enough to tell. Another thing, the gear was all yellow, not like the picture at all. Dana… Constructor’s daughter… traced it to a wholesaler. It wasn’t even expensive, they must have been throwing away their gear after a single use.”

“Really?” said the first young man. “Why wasn’t in the news, like every single thing Basiliskus did?”

“Why, indeed,” Audrey mused.

 “The thing is, the Agency tried pretty hard keep the stories out of the press,” Carl said. “At first, it looked like unrelated incidents, even accidents; from what we know now, one or two probably were.  Several of them were at… sensitive facilities, where there was already high security and known risks. So, it really wasn’t hard to keep under wraps. They said it was only going to be until we could figure out who was doing it and what they really wanted, except it didn’t work out that way. They still don’t like to talk about it.”

“So what really happened?” the first young man said. “Are you going to tell us they cornered you and Constructor like on the show, and then their whole lab just blew up?”

“I… actually didn’t see that episode,” Carl said. “Actually, it was my understanding it wasn’t going to be aired. But, anyway, that… Yeah, actually, that sounds exactly like what really happened.”

The young men fell silent. It was the woman who spoke up. “Then what happened then?” she asked. “Did anyone find out what was in the lab? Or if the Toxo Warriors escaped?”

Carl shook his head. “The blast gutted the whole building, then the whole thing came down,” he said. “Constructor and I only got out because I took the worst of it. Inside… The Agency investigators said several of the load-bearing members melted.  They said there was nowhere anyone or anything could have survived. They didn’t even mean alive, just… intact.”

There was a long silence. Then Carl spoke up again. “Say, what’s your name?” he said to the woman.

“I’m the Nine Foot Woman,” she said instinctively. “Professional name, of course. I’m here for another panel… Really, I need to go.” Her face was visibly flushed as she hurried out.

“Carl,” Audrey said as the audience began to disperse, “does that helmet come off?”

He started in mild surprise. “Um, yeah,” he said. “I mean, it can.”

Audrey nodded. “Then does that suit come off?”

“Ah… I suppose so,” he said. He turned his head to meet her gaze.

“Then,” Audrey said in a low, almost growling voice, “go find her panel!” As he hurried for the door she called out, “It’s conference room 6!” She shook her head as he disappeared. Then she hopped down from the podium and scurried for the door.